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iPhone Mapping Capabilities and Experiences

posted by Satri on Monday July 30, @07:16AM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
from the can-you-blame-hype? dept.
Web Mapping
Slashgeo was on hiatus when the iPhone came out. Several geoblogs discuss the mapping capabilities of this overly hyped gadget. Here's some of them. Let's start with a press release on the Nokia N95 and the iPhone raising the bar for mobile multimedia. Ogle Earth offers a link to use a GPS with your iPhone. And a reminder that it supports GeoRSS. A wrap-up from The Map Room. And really worthed are the posts by Peter Batty on Geothough about his experiences with the iPhone and its mapping capabilities. See also previous stories.

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Application Domains: iPhone Hype - How LBS Became Mainstream 2 comments [+]
Google's Ed Parsons shares comments on the iPhone and its impact on location-based services. From the entry: "So it’s interesting that one of the key features demonstrated is the Maps application, powered by Google, and its a great demo of what makes geographic information so valuable. [...] The user interface of course is great making full use of the gesture support, the application appears fully integrated with the rest of the phones applications, and most important of all for an LBS application, even though the phone is not location aware, the information presented is actionable - the vital ingredient in any LBS application."
iPhone Mapping Stories [+]
With the iPhone launch tomorrow, there's plenty of generic stories on the net. GeoThought shortly discuss Google Maps on the iPhone, and All Points Blog has a critical evaluation of the iPhone foreseen capabilities. From GeoThought: "They say "one of the most useful tools available on the Internet today is maps (sic), and Google Maps on the iPhone is amazing". It does have a number of flashy user interface features that aren't available on other versions of Google Maps." From APB: "The only thing I can see that is somewhat innovative is the integration the iPhone has with its other features. That is, when you select a particular POI, let's say a restaurant, and you touch the pin location on the map display, the user is able to see and then dial the phone number for that establishment." See also this previous entry by Ed Parsons and more below.
Application Domains: GPS Really Needed for Apple's iPhone? iWeb Mashups and GPS on the Mac [+]
The GeoThought blog starts with an entry on the new iWeb, part of Apple's iLife, supporting Google Maps mashups directly. Meanwhile, The Map Room links to a MacWorld article on GPS software for the Mac. Finally, the High Earth Orbit blog wonders if the iPhone really needs GPS capabilities. From this entry: "Geolocation does not mean GPS. GPS is a specific technology implementation of getting a location fix. It is also frought with complications that are most apparent in areas that people may use a mobile phone to find out what’s going on around them - that being urban areas, indoors, or anywhere that doesn’t have good sky coverage. [...] In fact, one of the most complained about features in the N95 has been it’s slow to fix GPS. Nokia finally got it better, from 74 seconds to 57 seconds, with their firmware upgrade. [...] Another problem with GPS - it’s a battery hog. [...] My point is, geolocation does not mean having a GPS. There are numerous methods of automatically locating yourself that doesn’t require listening to satellites 24,000 miles away. [...] So I hope to hear less of people bemoaning the iPhone’s lack of a GPS chip - and instead ask the more reasonable question “Why doesn’t the iPhone do geolocation by cell or WiFi?”" See also related stories below.
iPhone GPS Hack from Navizon [+]
AnyGeo reports about Navizon trying to use the iPhone as a gps device. From their summary, "An iPhone GPS hack? Well, if you check out gizmondo it appears that way! This blog thread discusses how the free Navizon GPS app was installed on the iPhone and enables geopositioning and navigation on the iPhone - check it out and let me know if it works for you! See http://www.navizon.com/FullFeatures.htm"
OpenStreetMap on the iPhone [+]
It was meant to happen, OpenStreetMap data has been ported to the iPhone. From the blog: "So it’s pretty easy to try it out. You’ll need to have jailbreak’d your phone (I used iBrickr, there’s plenty of other methods out there, even for 1.1.1). Download the maps tile cache db, and copy it over to your phone, using scp or whatever. The tile cache db is about 30 MB, so please only download if you’re going to try it. Also, I’ve had the Maps App crash occasionally when browsing the Maps, though nothing fatal .. so use at your own risk."
Industry: Google Earth to run on Google's mobile platform! [+]
Ogle Earth reports about Google's plans for Google Earth on their mobile platform just specs just released today. Here is Ogle Earth's summary :

"When the Apple iPhone came out, we were told it ran on a variant of OS X. It was only natural to speculate whether it might not run Google Earth. Now Google has released the specs for Android, its mobile platform, and we are told it will run on a variant of Linux. Google Earth also runs on Linux, so do we need to start speculating whether Google Earth will run on Google-platform mobiles?

No need! The guy behind the platform, Andy Rubin, has just shown the New York Times a version of Google Earth running on a mobile device: "

Head on over to Ogle Earth for the full details.
Application Domains: Location-Based Services, TomTom, Nokia and more 2 comments [+]
Here's a few geonews items mainly related to cellphones and location-based services. Spatial Sustain informs us of the new "send to GPS" feature linking Google Maps and TomTom devices. Second, MacRumors discuss an Engaget story about TomTom (possibly, it's a rumor!) developing a GPS module for Apple's iPhone. Meanwhile, APB links to a NYT article wondering if Nokia can make serious inroads in the American market of cellphones and location-based services, and finally, APB runs a short entry on TeleNav and Navizon offering free small location-based services applications. Several related previous stories copied below.
iPhone GPS Now a Reality [+]
The location capabilities for the iPhone has been discussed quite a few times here, see related stories below, but also this discussion on whether the iPhone needs GPS capabilities or not. Now Mapperz informs us a third-party GPS add-on for the iPhone and iPod Touch will start shipping in February at the price of 89$US. Great news: the software used is open source, bad news: it requires your iPhone/iPod Touch to be 'jailbroken' (maybe this will change with the upcoming SDK?). The description: "The iphone locoGPS module allows jail broken iphones to finally have GPS functionality. This module is in development and will be shipping in February. All software is open source and more applications are being written every day. The locoGPS module gives you the ability to explore all the benefits of GPS from a device that is small enough to put on a keychain." There's also Google's My Location new feature which works on the iPhone now.
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